Gift vouchers: money now, an obligation later

A gift voucher brings money in before any food goes out, which makes it feel like the easiest sale a venue makes.

The kitchen still serves that meal months later, at whatever the ingredients cost then. That gap is the whole subject.

The money is a liability until somebody eats

Treating voucher sales as ordinary revenue overstates a good month and understates the cost of the quiet one when they redeem.

Holding the outstanding balance as a separate figure keeps the picture honest, and it is a number an accountant will ask for anyway.

Know the expiry rules where you trade

In Australia the ACCC puts the minimum at three years from the day of purchase. That covers gift cards bought on or after 1 November 2019 (Gift cards and discount vouchers).

Several categories sit outside that, including reloadable cards, promotional giveaways and cards sold at a genuine discount. A venue selling an ordinary voucher is not one of them.

The ACCC also requires the expiry date to appear prominently, or a statement that the card has none. Printing a shorter expiry on an ordinary voucher will not survive a complaint.

Number every voucher

A voucher without a unique number invites a photocopy, a second redemption, and a dispute nobody can settle.

A simple sequence, recorded when sold and marked when redeemed, ends all three problems.

Decide the partial redemption rule, and print it

A fifty dollar voucher spent on a thirty dollar meal leaves a question every venue answers differently.

The venue may give change, carry a balance, or return nothing. The customer needs that rule before ordering, not afterwards.

Train the staff who redeem them

A voucher arrives on a busy Saturday, in front of a staff member who has never seen one. That produces the awkward moment the gift was meant to prevent.

Two minutes in an induction covers the whole process and protects the experience of a customer somebody chose to give a gift.

Christmas and Mother's Day carry the volume

Voucher sales concentrate into a few weeks, and the redemptions land months later, often in the quietest part of the year.

That is helpful for cash and unhelpful for a January roster if nobody anticipated it.

Sell them where people are already buying

A small display at the counter and a line on the website sell far more than a poster nobody reads.

A customer paying for lunch in early December is the most willing buyer a voucher ever meets.

Make the voucher look worth giving

A printed card in an envelope becomes a gift. A receipt with a number scrawled on it never does, whatever its value.

The presentation costs very little and decides whether the recipient feels valued by the person who gave it.

A voucher for an experience beats one for an amount

A breakfast for two, or a coffee a week for a month, reads as a gift in a way that a dollar figure never does.

It also fixes what the venue owes, so the cost does not drift with the menu between the sale and the visit.

Track redemption, not just sales

The share of vouchers customers redeem, and how long they take, tells the venue how much of that money it has genuinely earned.

A high unredeemed balance is not a windfall. It is a set of customers who never came, which is the opposite of the point.

A voucher is a chance to win a regular

Most voucher holders have never visited, and they arrive predisposed to enjoy it because somebody who likes them chose the place.

Treating that visit as an introduction, rather than as a bill already paid, is how a voucher turns into a customer.

What to change first

• Outstanding voucher value sits as a liability, apart from revenue
• The printed expiry meets the current consumer law, prominently shown
• Every voucher carries a unique number, recorded on sale and redemption
• The partial redemption rule appears on the voucher itself
• Induction covers how to redeem one
• Vouchers get offered at the counter and on the website
• Redemption rate and time to redeem both get tracked

This article is general information about gift card rules in Australia, not legal advice, and does not take account of your own circumstances. It follows the ACCC's guidance on gift cards and discount vouchers and is current as at 24 September 2026. That page, or your own adviser, is where a detail belongs before anybody relies on it.